


the quiet (phan)

by SJWrites



Series: // Fantastic Foursome // One Shots // [7]
Category: Amazingphil - Fandom, Danisnotonfire - Fandom, Phan, Youtube RPF
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Breakup, F/M, M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, Suicide, Unresolved Angst, implied suicide, sad end, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SJWrites/pseuds/SJWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the Troye Sivan song of the same name. </p><p>Prequel to "You."</p><p>—Dan didn’t flinch at all, really.</p><p>Not after Jonathan.—</p>
            </blockquote>





	the quiet (phan)

**Author's Note:**

> guess who wrote a super sad thing
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:
> 
> SUICIDE  
> ABUSE  
> FIGHTING  
> BREAKUP

**_Growing distance_ **

 

Dan didn’t know how to explain it, but something about him felt wrong. I mean, of course, being alone in his usually loud flat was going to feel wrong but this was… This wasn’t a lack of Phil in his apartment.

It was a lack of Phil’s voice in his apartment.

 

**_Free of explanation_ **

 

How long had they been fighting?

Dan couldn’t even remember what they were fighting about.

All he knew is that Phil was still giving him the cold shoulder, going as far to sleep in during the mornings they would usually get up, eat cereal and watch anime together. Phil was never one to hold grudges and Dan couldn’t ever remember him being this angry, but he was. Phil was angry and Dan didn’t know why.

Maybe that was why Phil was angry.

 

**_We're getting deeper in this mess_ **

 

Dan was past hurt when he found his favorite mug in the trash. He was angry.

Just because Phil was angry he didn’t have the right to throw away Dan’s favorite bloody mug. Dan, with a careful cap on his temper, marched to Phil’s room where he heard the distinct sounds of Call Of Duty being played. (Badly.)

“Phil,” He called through the door, his voice missing the lilt that it used to have in their old collabs,”We need to talk.”

There was no reply.

Dan sighed and kicked the drywall next to Phil’s door before slamming it open and glaring at Phil.

“You’re a twenty eight year old man, stop ignoring me like a child.” Phil scoffed and turned back to his game, ignoring Dan completely.

Dan thought, no, he had hoped, that the anger in his voice, the insult, would have gotten a rise out of Phil. Dan knew, at that moment, that everything was falling apart.

 

**_Take careful contemplation_ **

 

Dan didn’t confront Phil like he meant to.

The lack of reaction had deflated him, stole any energy he had and created a thick mass of depression that seemed to sit on his diaphragm.

The only thing he knew how to do was run away, so that’s what Dan did. He slammed out of his flat without a jacket or his phone and into the thick, London rain.

He didn’t care anymore. He walked quickly, head down, and the rain disguised the tears on his cheeks. He decided, if Phil wanted to ignore him, Dan would make it easy. That’s what lovers did, right?

They made it easy for their lovers to be happy.

Dan didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he needed to make Phil happy. If disappearing into the night would make the elder man happy, Dan could oblige.

After all, he obliged to stay closeted when he didn’t want to, right?

Dan could do that one last thing for the man he loved, right?

By the time his legs were tired and his lungs ached, Dan didn’t know where he was.

The smog was thick over his head and the rain had stopped hours ago.

Was he safe?

Did he care?

Dan had peeled off his hoodie and chucked it in a trashcan after a car had sprayed him with mud and God knows what was on the side of the road and he could feel himself beginning to regret it.

But did he?

Did he regret leaving?

There was no doubt about that.

The question Dan was asking himself as he sat curled in on a trashcan was the most painful to think.

Would he regret going home?

 

**_I'd rather be spitting blood_ **

 

The men had cornered him half an hour later after he had thrown away his McDonald’s trash. It’s like they were waiting for him, stalking him and waiting to ambush him. Dan knew what they wanted as soon as the pocket knife glistened under the moonlight.

“Look, guys, you just watched me spend the rest of my money.” Dan reasoned, hands raised, “There’s no need for this.”

“Yeah?” One of the, rather ugly, thugs grinned. “My baby girl watches you on that YouTube and I bet she’d be thrilled the meet you.”

Dan resisted the urge the vomit when he realized the irony behind this and his old video _How to Befriend Your Favorite Internet Stars._

“Please,” Dan’s voice was strained, “I have a boyfriend to get home to.” His throat stung with the lie.

The thugs laughed and backed Dan into the corner before the ugly one threw a punch that landed directly on Dan’s nose, breaking it. Dan cried out, crumbling to the ground and holding his nose. A boot connected with his ribcage and then another… And another…

By the time the thugs realized Dan really didn’t have any money on him, they scampered away laughing jovially.

Dan’s head was swimming and he was scared with the amount of blood traveling up his throat and out his mouth. He was sure he was covered in bruises and his nose was never going to stop bleeding, was it?

Dan just knew he had to get back to his flat.

It took him almost six hours to stagger back to the innards of London.

 

**_Than have this silence fuck me up_ **

 

Phil wasn’t home when Dan arrived and for that the younger boy was thankful.

He didn’t need his pity.

Besides, the broken nose and bruised ribcage hurt much less than Phil’s stony silence. Dan cleaned himself up and fell into his bed, feeling vindictive when he realized he had locked the door when he fell through his doorframe.

Dan must have drifted off, or passed out, because the next sound he hears is the front door clicking shut and Phil’s voice.

“No, Pj, I don’t know where he went. If I knew I wouldn’t be calling you and Chris.” A brief pause and Dan figured Phil must have been on the phone with PJ. “He’s not in his room, either. Why would I check again? PJ it’s been nearly eleven hours, we need to go looking for him.”

Another pause and Dan shifted himself up into a sitting position, facing his wall. Dan didn’t care if Phil came in gave him eight pounds of sweets and sucked him off to apologize; there was no going back from something like this.

But Dan couldn’t help but feel the small tightening of his gut when the doorknob rattled and Phil dropped the phone, calling out for him.

Maybe Phil still cared.

Dan squashed the thought before it could invade anymore of his reality.

He didn’t need to think that, especially when it wasn’t true.

Dan could hear Phil frantically calling his name, pulling on the door. His cellphone began to ring from the bedside table. Dan knew it was PJ or Chris.

“Go away, Phil.”

Silence fell over the house once more.

 

**_This separation_ **

 

The fight intensified when Dan fought fire with fire. He was being childish, sure, but the pride Dan felt when Phil dropped his mug the next morning was worth it.

Phil rushed over to him, words falling from his mouth in fractured splinters before he realized Dan was drawing away from his touch.

“Dan,” Phil’s eyes softened as he looked over his younger, smaller, more fragile boyfriend, “Baby,”

“Do not call me that!” The sheer force that Dan’s voice had startled himself and he felt the shame boil over as Phil flinched. “Don’t call me that.” His voice was lower, calmer, but still was colored with anger.

Where had it come from?

Dan didn’t care.

His body ached, he had a pounding headache and the whiplash of Phil suddenly caring was making him drowsy.

“Why not?”

Dan scoffed and turned back to Phil with a snarl on his face

“The last week is why not. My nose is why not.”

“I didn’t do that to you!” Phil shouted, throwing his hands up. Dan couldn't help it; he flinched back and brought his hands up to protect his face.

“D…” Phil whispered

“Phil, don’t. Please.” Dan cursed himself as his voice broke. He pushed past Phil without his food and slammed his door. He leaned against it and wondered where they went wrong.

 

**_time and space between us_ **

 

He could feel Phil in the next room.

It was stupid and unreal, but he could.

He could feel the beating of his heart and the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing.

Dan wondered, laying on his own bed, if it was just because he had those things memorized.

From the way Phil’s breath stuttered in his sleep, to the soft snores that he emitted.

Dan hated himself for remembering these things.

Dan knew what he needed to do. He rose, in the middle of the night, when he knew that Phil was sound asleep. He packed what he could in a backpack and left what would remind him too much of Phil.

It wasn’t much.

 

**_For some revelation_ **

**_You didn’t care to discuss_ **

 

Dan felt the regret seeping into his system as he was unpacking in the hotel room.

Who left their lover in the middle of a fight, during the night?

Scum.

Dan.

Dan was scum and the feeling reverberated through his entire being.

Dan really needed to stop calling Phil his lover. They were nothing now.

How would he tell his fans?

Maybe he wouldn’t.

As he looked in the mirror above the sink in the bathroom he realized it would be months before his face healed. He couldn’t make a video unless he got some super high grade makeup and bright lighting.

Dan sighed and gently ran his fingers over the bags of his eyes that were swollen, green, and black from the broken nose. He shoved the shame down and pushed away all of emotions.

If he was going to live through this he needed to live through it Dan’s way.

And Dan’s way was drinking, forgetting and maybe taking a strange man back to the hotel with him.

The man, who called himself Jonathan, was stocky and muscular and completely unlike Phil.

Phil was gentle, loving.

Phil worshipped Dan’s body.

This Jonathan man, with a tuft a unruly black hair and scrubble, was rough and dangerous.

His voice was cold and his hands were bruising. Dan didn’t care. They stayed between the sheets all night, bruising each other with their teeth and words.

Dan loved it.

He loved every moment that he forgot Phil and learned Jonathan. He didn’t feel shame or guilt because Jonathan was all he felt. Jonathan filled every inch of him and his voice was all Dan could process.

It was strange how alive Dan felt with Jonathan’s hands on him.

Even when they closed around his neck and Jonathan smiled widely as Dan flailed, he felt alive.

Dan did end up going home.

He stumbled into the flat, still half drunk and pale to find Phil curled up on the couch next to a girl.

Dan recognized her, barely, and ignored them in favor for his room.

He collapsed into his bed and wiggled his body which was sore from foreign hands. In the morning the girl introduced herself as Dan’s new flatmate and covered Dan’s bruises to make a collab together.

She was nice, Dan knew that.

They had barely talked but when he found her curled up on the couch in a blanket. He dropped down next to her.

Dan was trying to decide whether to say something or not. He had only ever dated Phil and wasn’t too sure of the tells of women. He was surprised to see her crying and he knew how savage the Phandom could be. Dan knew. He definitely knew.

“Are they harassing you again?”

“It’s not bad. It’s just the comments on our latest collab.” She sighed out.

What was Dan supposed to say to that? He could barely think through the haze of Jonathan and the fact that he was technically cheating on Phil. He felt sick when he realized that he and Phil technically never broke up. It didn’t matter.

Dan blanketed himself over the girl, “Just don’t listen to them.” It was rubbish advice and he knew it but Dan couldn’t bring himself to do anything or say anything more as Phil padded by into the living room. Dan finally felt the shame dribble into his being when his phone went off.

“Look,” Dan said, getting up uncertainly, “I know this is really sucky timing…” The girl sniffed and waved him off.

“Go ahead,” He ducked his head and scampered out the door, lest Jonathan try and find him and end up finding Phil.

“Dan,” Phil stopped Dan at the door and Dan wondered if he noticed the ring shaped bruise on Dan’s wrist or the cut on his neck. “I love you.”

Dan swallowed thickly, slamming the door behind him.

 

**_I'd rather be black and blue_ **

**_Than accept that you withdrew_ **

 

Dan stopped keeping track of how many days passed when he stopped covering the bruises on his face.

He stopped keeping track of the days when he realized that Phil told him that he loved him every time he left the house.

Dan stopped keeping track of how many days passed when Jonathan kissed his knuckles and bruised his lips.

Somehow, for Dan, when the days passed in an alcohol filled, pain induced haze, he found that it hurt less than remembering what he had done to Phil.

Or what Phil had done to him, because Jonathan had told him that Phil was angry…

Phil was a good friend but an abusive boyfriend.

Dan once pointed out that hey, beating your boyfriend is abusive. Then again, Dan didn’t talk for a week after that. He wasn’t sure why he still came when Jonathan called, but he did.

Dan somehow had managed to fall in love with Jonathan to protect Phil.

 

**_Aaah, just tell me_ **

**_Say anything_ **

**_Anything hurts less than the quiet_ **

 

“Don’t leave,” Phil whispered against Dan’s skin. They were pressed against each other in the shower, kissing between Phil’s desperate begging. “I love you, I don’t want you to leave.”

But then Jonathan was there, hurting Phil, killing Phil and Dan jolted out of bed.

A scream died in his throat.

 

**_Just tell me_ **

**_Say anything_ **

**_Anything hurts less than the quiet_ **

 

Eventually Phil stopped telling Dan he loved him.

Jonathan stopped kissing his knuckles.

Dan still went back, like a confusing addict ready for a fix.

Somehow he felt more whole with Jonathan’s fist around his throat than in Phil’s silence.

 

**_Used to give each other the world,_ **

**_every bit_ **

 

Dan remembered Phil’s laugh in the weirdest time.

Like curled up in a strange house, in a strange bed, in Jonathan’s arms.

 

**_I used to be the one you'd come to_ **

 

Dan didn’t realize he was hurting his flatmates until he heard them crying together in the kitchen one day.

With a pain in his chest he realized Phil was slowly falling for her. He was going to her when he was sad, like he used to go to Dan.

Dan grabbed his camera and set up his recording setup.

“Hello, Internet,”

 

**_When it'd all go to shit_ **

**_Now I'm left here in the dust_ **

**_With the taste of broken trust_ **

 

“There isn’t anywhere for you, anymore, Daniel.”

“Phil doesn’t love you.”

“He loves her, and you know it.”

“I don’t know why I bother with you.”

“I should leave you.”

“The only thing you’re good for is being alone.”

 

**_And I don't wanna walk away_ **

**_But you left me no choice_ **

 

Dan could leave Jonathan anytime, he decided.

It was a hard decision to make to leave Phil and he did that, didn’t he?

 

**_Only talking to myself here_ **

**_Now you've muffled your voice_ **

 

Everyday that went by Phil’s voice, loving and caring, fell farther from Dan’s mind.

It was replaced by harsh words and hits.

Even Dan’s voice, reason and logic, fell from his head.

He felt like he was talking to himself but he also felt like he was screaming into the void.

 

**_I'd rather have broken bones_ **

**_Than feel myself turn to stone_ **

 

It was six months after he had laid on her in the living room.

Somehow Jonathan had found out that she liked him, Dan himself didn’t even know, and cornered him in his home.

Where was Phil?

Somehow Dan was still worried about him even though Jonathan had him pressed in a hallway corner.

“I told you that you’re mine,” The giant growled, “Maybe I should go get the whore you’re cheating on me with and show her who’s boss.”

“Don’t,” His voice cracked, “Please.”

“Come here,” Jonathan jerked Dan closer and leaned down to snarl in his face.

 

**_Aaah, just tell me_ **

**_Say anything_ **

**_Anything hurts less than the quiet_ **

 

He didn’t know how to articulate the panic he felt snaking up his throat when he spied his flatmates trying to sneak out behind them.

Dan didn’t know how to feel when he realized that they were abandoning him.

Nobody said anything as Jonathan whipped around, practically red with fury.

 

**_Just tell me Say anything_ **

**_Anything hurts less than the quiet_ **

 

 

Dan wanted to.

He wanted to say something.

He wanted to yell and scream and go back to Phil and stay in Phil’s arms because he loved Phil but… He couldn’t.

There was a conversation going on, and Dan took part of it, but he couldn’t remember what was said.

His mind was going one thousand miles an hour as he watched Jonathan crumple under fists, as he heard her voice shouting through the haze in his head.

He knew what he was doing was wrong but all at once his strength came back and he was pushing her off of his lover.

 

**_I don't mind that I know that you're wrong_ **

 

Dan tended to his wounds and tenderly kissed each one of them. He didn’t flinch when Jonathan verbally attacked his flatmates.

 

**_I don't mind that you think you're right_ **

 

Dan didn’t flinch at all, really.

Not after Jonathan.

 

**_All I want is a fight to fight_ **

 

And after himself, too.

There were too many scars on his body to flinch at anything besides Phil’s gaze anymore.

 

**_Anything but quiet_ **

 

Dan wondered how long it was take his email to send.

How long had he set the time delay for? He couldn’t remember.

 

**_Just tell me_ **

 

Dan was the only one with a license. Jonathan never bothered to get his, so Dan drove him everywhere.

 

**_Say anything_ **

 

Usually Dan put on his seatbelt.

 

**_Anything hurts less than the quiet._ **

 

Dan didn’t put on his seatbelt.

**Author's Note:**

> this is also posted on my wattpad @SJDunWrites


End file.
